Nunquam Erit
by Kang Xiu
Summary: Five Things That Never Happened To Cosette. Some mild slash. All latin should be taken with a grain of salt, as Korin has abosolutely no basic knowledge in that field and got it all from a dictionary...
1. In Which Cosette is Oddly Comforted

Quintette: Five Things That Never Happened to Cosette.  
  
Disclaimer: Kanashimi: Korin owns not Cosette, nor neither Marius, Éponine, Courfeyrac, Valjean, nor Madame Thénardier. Damn, that's a lot of negatives! None of them needed, neither.  
  
Nunquam Erit  
  
~~~1~~~  
  
Lacrimae  
  
She cried. She cried because it was cold, and her thin, torn, soiled shift wasn't enough. She cried because her side ached from where M'sieur's heavy boots had caught her earlier. She cried because she was hungry, and no one would ever offer her a warm meal. Mostly, though, she cried because no one would come to ask why she was crying, and then kiss away her tears and comfort her.  
  
The sobs wracked her thin frame, twisting her body and making her head spin, and her breath caught horribly in her chest and she choked and gasped, and it *hurt*. She wrapped her arms about herself and shook, feeling her thin strands of hair falling in wiggly scraggles around her face.  
  
She didn't hear the faint rustle of Éponine's nightdress until the other girl was sitting in front of her, head cocked like an inquisitive bird.  
  
How she envied Éponine! Éponine had a mother who loved her; Éponine would probably always be loved. She'd never live in dirt, all alone, never knowing if the next day someone was going to hit her too hard and break her, never have to content herself with imagining happiness because she'd always have happiness. So she didn't stop her tears; instead, let them continue to pour down her face.  
  
She might've died when Éponine put out a small white hand and stroked her cheek, fingers trailing over her dirty, wet skin.  
  
"Don't cry. Last night I dreamed I died. Don't cry, Cosette."  
  
Then she stood, and turned, and went back up the stairs, without a backward glance at the stunned girl behind her. Cosette looked after her for a few perfectly silent moments, tensed and still, then curled up under the table and slept, but she was no longer crying.  
  
Owari ~ End 


	2. In Which Cosette is Longing yet Content

~~~2~~~  
  
Gelu  
  
Cosette sat on her bed, reading, in a moment of spare time. The book was one she'd borrowed from another girl, an adventure, wild and suspenseful, with careful dark print that contradicted the intriguing, imaginative events enacted by the cast.   
  
She looked out the window of her room, and wondered if this was the sort of life she might have had if she'd left the convent. But that didn't bear thinking on. It would only make her feel lonely and trapped again, and thus she should shut it away and try to think about either the story or God, as both required her attention, and the tug-of-war was a little more daring.  
  
Twenty-two, now, four years since her father's decision that she should stay. It was a routine life, somewhat boring, but definitely safe. And she would never, ever have to worry about Madame Thénardier finding her here. Here she was safe. Here, she was *free* of that. So even having no freedom for the rest of the world, at least the freedom from the nightmarish woman was complete and filling.  
  
And her father loved her, which was a beautiful, wonderful treasure. She had someone who loved her. And really, she loved him too, for his care and kindness.  
  
So she was happy. And it didn't quite matter that she'd never see what was beyond the convent's gates. After all, she had her book.  
  
Owari ~ End 


	3. In Which Cosette is Harshly Shattered

~~~3~~~  
  
Frangere  
  
As soon as she saw Marius' face, she knew something was desperately wrong. His gentle forehead was creased into a worried frown, and he regarded her with troubled, sorrow-full eyes.  
  
"Cosette?"  
  
"Oui, Marius...?  
  
She expected a thousand things, she supposed; his grandfather had refused to allow them to be married, things weren't going well for him or his roommate, even that his roommate had thrown him out, anything, but not...  
  
"Cosette, I loved you --"  
  
Loved. The past tense chilled her, made her go rigid, made her heart suddenly crack, though it had not yet come to shards. And now he was almost babbling, words tripping over themselves in a frantic, shy, unhappy rush.  
  
"Courfeyrac - very good friends - allowed me to stay with him - loved you - cared so much - but René - didn't intend - didn't know, and never meant - kissed me - I'm so *sorry*, Cosette!"  
  
And then her heart did splinter. "I understand. It's all right. I know. Love can fade, can turn, can twist," she hardly knew what she was saying, "there can be someone else so easily. You talked about him. He sounds wonderful. I'm happy for you. I hope you're happy together. I hope you're *happy*..." she managed before her voice broke.  
  
He smiled in such childlike relief she wanted to break along with it. This was her Marius, whom she purely, truly loved, and he was shredding the leftover pieces of her shattered heart, without even meaning it. "Thank you, so much, thank you for understanding."  
  
Of course there was a pause, awkward and long, in which his smile began to fade.  
  
"Well... Adieu, Cosette. Thank you, again."  
  
"You're welcome. Adieu..."  
  
Then he was gone. Gone forever, she realized. Maybe she'd see him sometimes, but he was never going to sit with her on the marble bench again, and they would never talk and laugh about little things again, and they'd never be married, never be married. She sank down on the cold stone, lost, and, as she hadn't since her father took her from the Thénardiers', she cried.  
  
Owari ~ End 


	4. In Which it is Proven that not Only Rs a...

~~~4~~~  
  
Sanguis  
  
Blood, Cosette reflected, sitting on her bed, had almost a nice scent if one viewed things properly. It was a sort of tingling, ironic smell, and it wafted. It could be corrosive, but only if one really wanted to consider it a bad thing. And it wasn't.  
  
It didn't look terrible; it was actually rather pretty. Every little crimson billow had its own shape and curls. Depending - as she pricked with the kitchen knife - on where the cut was, it unfurled in a different red fern every time. Then it spread along the skin, sending out tendrils. Of course, if one was simply making very small cuts, the way she was, then it merely served to create small, crimson mounds that quickly hardened over with a film that broke when gently prodded.  
  
Also - she gasped softly as the knife went too deep and created a larger wound, and she quickly raised the top of her wrist to her lips and sucked away the red - it didn't taste awful either. Just a bit salty and... vibrating? That was the *feel* it gave. A vibration.  
  
She'd been doing this for ages, since she was a little girl and one of the men who came to the Thénardiers' showed her how and explained about it. He was a strange man with soft, friendly black eyes that looked in different directions. He'd crouched down by her spot under a table and talked, rambling a bit, but warmly, and then pulled out his pocket-knife and poked small, shallow cuts into his already pocked hands.  
  
"See," he'd said, "the blood's horridly lovely if you look at it right. See - I've made a flower."  
  
And he had. So she'd stolen one of M'sieur's little knives one night, and played around, practicing. It felt oddly nice, a soft little burst of pain that dissolved into a slight pleasing tremor after a moment. She now had to steal knives from the kitchen of her father's house, but it was mostly the same.  
  
It was while she was putting the knife back, having crept downstairs, that she remembered Marius, and scampered outside in her nightdress. He asked why, and she said she'd forgotten, and they laughed. He took her hands in his tenderly, and kissed each once, chastely, and never noticed the tiny bit of crimson on his lips.  
  
Owari ~ End 


	5. In Which Marius Becomes a Storyteller Bu...

~~~5~~~  
  
Perire  
  
When she heard Marius was wounded, dying, nearly torn to shreds by the battles at the barricades, her first thought was for him. Her second was for the men who wouldn't have his second chance.  
  
She made bandages day upon the day, and while she tore and sewed she prayed and cried and worried. She imagined the horrors that Marius must have seen. She had heard him talk of his friends often. She wondered how each had died, what their last thoughts had been, if they had felt betrayed and shattered in dying without accomplishing, or if they had believed that their deaths must prove the bravery and longing of these men of France. She wondered if Marius had seen each of his friends fall, and she ached at the idea of watching men he had shared dreams with drown in blood without ever their dreams coming true.  
  
She found that it had become a wild obsession, that she couldn't help but desire to know these schoolboys who sang for a dawning new world. Courfeyrac, who Marius had been roommate to; Enjolras, who had led them, and whom Marius had revered until he met her, and then still held a deep respect for. She wished to have *known* them, for then she could truly know what their sacrifice was for and what made it burn like a fire in their eyes and minds and hearts.  
  
When she heard Marius was becoming ill, when she heard he might not achieve recovery from the trauma and the injury he had received, she began to split. She loved Marius; she needed him. He was her world, her everything. And he also held the key. He could tell her about his companions of ideals in detail. He alone could tell her if Jehan Prouvaire laughed like a soft stream bubbling over mossy rocks, or like a nervous doe sidestepping behind a fir. He was the only one who could say if Feuilly's hands were calloused and worn, but still warm and gentle, or if hard work and little pay had made them bitter. She loved Marius, but already she loved the men who he had fought beside. She needed them all, and therefore she needed Marius most.  
  
She would have given anything to give him life. She would have sacrificed anything to gain the promise that Marius and all his friends would live. She longed to walk with him, to laugh with him, to hear what he had to say; and she yearned to hear what Combeferre or Joly had to say as well. If he fell into darkness, with him the barricades would fall and be lost. Marius knew the story of the men there. Marius was the last who could tell it. She would have made any bargain with Death for his life and stories. If she had thought she was powerful enough, she might have argued for them. Instead she was left to beg.  
  
Death asks no one which men He has a right to. Love and passion, bravery and sacrifice, cannot be explained to Him. It cannot be said, "This man is life. There are still futures for him; there are still dreams he has not dreamed." It cannot be shown to Him the difference of young and old, of alive and tired. He is deaf, and He cannot hear pleas; He is blind and He cannot see tears. He collects, and then the stories belong to Him.  
  
Marius was buried in a quiet, but fine, old graveyard. The white marble that served him for a marker was beautifully carved and bore the tears of both Cosette and his grandfather. The inscription was simple, a message of love. But in Cosette's heart, different words were engraved. She mourned the loss of the one she loved, and like a wild despair mourned the loss of the ones she could only imagine.  
  
He was one man who carried within himself the souls and spirits of many. They died with him, and he died with them.  
  
Owari ~ End 


End file.
